Concepts of Fuseki - Part B

Adapted from an article by Takagawa

There is much discussion of the 'Figure' diagrams in this
article. You may wish to open a second browser window with the same
address to have one window reading the text and another viewing the
figures.

Fig 3. White 20 and black 21 are miai points, i.e. if one player
takes one the other will play the other one. If white had jumped to one
point below the left side star point for 20, then black would play 21 as
a kosumi[3] to the
left of 20. This kosumi would be severe as white's stones on the lower
edge would come under attack sooner or later. Hence white 20 is aimed to
settle these stones. Black 21 is natural. White can later cut at A or
invade at B, so black's territory in the upper right corner is far from
secure. The next problem we have to face is how to securewhite's right
corner group. You will have noticed by now that securing a weak group
comes before anything else. Amateur players tend to overlook their own
weak groups and launch premature attacks, which is a bad way to play.

I hope you will all agree that white 22 is the only move to play
now. I trust no-one would play 1 in Dia 12, which is alright in securing
the white group, but it also secures black's upper corner. White could
no longer play A or B in Fig 3. Black 23 develops a position on the left
and white 24 is the usual response. After black 25 and white 26, black
settles his lower left group in the same way as before. White missed an
opportunity here; if he had played 24'* at 1 in Dia 13, then things could
have ben better for him. White 32 is the correct extension from the star
point. You should know that that white cannot enclose the corner (2 in
Fig 1[4]) with one more move, so he should
increase his influence, and white 32 is the best way to do this. Also a
black play around here would expand black's moyo. * BGJ had 26.

Next Black 37 is an interesting move. The basic principle of
extensions tells us this move is wrong. Ref Dia A shows that if black
makes a wide three-step extension, white will be happy to invade at 3.
If, however, Black has a wall of two stones, then he can make this
three-step extension as in Ref Dia B. If white A, black can play B. But
in this game black 37 threatens white's lower group, so I felt justified
in playing this unusually wide extension.

White immediately stabilised his lower group by playing 38 below 28,
just like 22 in the other corner. I will stop the discussion here, but I
have given Fig 4 to show how the middle game started. (Eventually I won
when White resigned.)

There is one further point of interest and that is the 44, 45, 46
exchange. White 44 attacks the weak point of this shimari, so black 45
is played to patch up this sore point. Dias 14, 15 and 16 show how white
can easily settle his position if black doesn't play 45.

In conclusion, I hope you have realsied just how much consideration
professional players give to the question of stailising their weak
groups before starting an attack. This is one of the main weaknesses of
many amateur players.

This article is from the
British Go Journal
Issue 16[1]
which is one of a series[5] of back issues now available on the web.

Last updated Wed Jan 02 2013. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster on web-master AT britgo DOT org.